


Sollux: Be the spaceship

by iwantcandy2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternian Society, Character Study, Gen, Psionics, Troll Culture, sound mostly like shit, troll jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:38:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Sollux, and when you grow up you are going to be a spaceship.</p><p>A quickie exploring exactly what it's like growing up and knowing you are going to be a sentient generator for a glorious empire that doesn't give a fetid fart about you.</p><p>Just rated T for language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sollux: Be the spaceship

Your name is Sollux, and when you grow up you are going to be a spaceship.

 

When you first learned about the great and noble calling of The Helmsmen, you were barely more than a wiggler, the grub scars on your sides still itching with phantom sensation. You learned through your schoolfeeding that high-level psionics helped serve the glorious Alternian Empire by helming the most powerful battleships in the universe. Hell yes. Hell. Fucking. Yes. To a newly bipedal, bifurcated boy, this sounded like the sweetest gig known to paradox space. You would fly around the galaxy, blasting stuff with your proton cannons, and generally being batshit levels of badass.

                

You became obsessed with spaceships. You devoured every scrap of information you could get on them. Ate that shit up like it was candy. You scrimped and saved in order to buy models of the empire’s most elite ships, lovingly assembling them and displaying them in your hive like they were trophies. You could rattle off the stats of any ship in Her Imperial Condescension’s armada, listing cannon count and battles fought and worlds dominated and other sorts of useless information that put your peers into an information-overload coma. You could identify different ships by sight, from the sleek, tapering form of a scout to the wedge shaped profile of a rear-guard to the whale-like curves of a destroyer.

 

 You would spend hours on the roof of your communal hivestem, looking up at the stars and thinking about the different planets you would visit and possibly blow up with your fucking awesome dual-core paradox fueled reality cannon. You would visit the far edges of the galaxy, to the very brink of known existence and possibly beyond, pushing the glory of your race outwards into the unknown.

 

It was going to be hella sweet.

 

You fixated onto this dream like most little grubs fasten onto a fiber-woven security object. It didn’t matter what sort of slurs people called you, or how they made fun of your mutant horns. They would be lucky to get a job swabbing your deck. Which was going to be titanium-carbon alloy reinforced with dark matter, fyi. You were going to grow up to be something amazing, powerful, unstoppable. It was going to be the best job in the world.

 

Until Karkat the perpetual-loathing-machine Vantas crushed your dreams.

 

You had the misfortune of befriending him through an online game, and by “befriend,” you mean engage in a series of escalating arguments over increasingly trivial details.

 

TA: for the hexamiiliionth tiime, you are not leadiing thii2 raiid.

TA: la2t time ii let you lead you managed to get our entiire party culled.

TA: from friendly fiire.

TA: fiire that you 2tarted iin your iincompetence.

 

CG: FUCK YOU, I NEVER CLAIMED TO BE TROLL NAPOLEON WHEN IT COMES TO BATTLE TACTICS.

CG: I JUST THINK WE WOULD HAVE A LOT MORE SUCCESS IF WE SPENT LESS TIME SITTING AROUND COLLECTIVELY STROKING OUR BULGES AND MORE TIME ACTUALLY TRYING TO DEFEAT THE ENEMY.

CG: YOUR PRIMARY STRATEGY IS TO SIT AROUND AND HOPE THE ENEMY COMMITS BOREDOM-INDUCED SUICIDE.

CG: WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF TRAINING HAVE YOU HAD WHEN IT COMES TO MELEE WARFARE?

CG: GOD, IT’S NOT EVEN THAT HARD. YOU JUST KILL EVERYONE ELSE. EVEN A PUPA WITH SEVERE THINK PAN TRAUMA CAN COMPREHEND THAT.

 

TA: 2poken liike a true iidiiot wiith a cull-worthy lack of 2elf-pre2ervatiion iin2tiinct.

TA: the fuck kind of rank do you expect to get iif you cant 2urvive your fir2t mii22iion?

 

CG: LOOK NOOK-NIBBLER, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I PASSED THE PRELIMINARY EXAMS OF BASE-LINE BLOODTHIRSTINESS.

CG: I’M ON THE FAST TRACK TO BECOMING A THRESHECUTIONER.

CG: I’LL BE OUT THERE DRESSING THE BATTLEFIELD IN WHATEVER SORT OF DISGUSTING ALIEN ORGANS OUR ENEMIES HAVE WHILE YOU’LL BE COWERING IN A BUNKER HOPING THE PUTRID STENCH OF YOUR FEAR GLANDS WILL KEEP THE DESERTER-DRONES FROM CULLING YOU.

 

TA: Plea2e. You have le22 chance of becomiing a Thre2hecutiioner than tz doe2 of becomiing an optometrii2t.

TA: be2iide2, ii wont be on the battlefiield.

TA: iill be above it, raiiniing down la2er-guiided death.

 

CG: OH GOG, NOT THIS AGAIN.

CG: PLEASE TELL ME YOU AREN’T STILL SPOUTING THAT SHIT.

CG: OOH, LOOK AT ME, I CAN’T _WAIT_ TO HAVE MY THINK-PAN FORCEFULLY EVISCERATED AND REPLACED WITH SILICOMB.

CG: BEING A FUCKING UNFEELING BATTERY DOOMED TO A SHORT LIFE OF UNENDING AGONY, DISASSOCIATED FROM ALL PHYSICAL SENSATION AND NOTHING MORE THAN A SERVER TO PROCESS THE SELF-IMPORTANT EMAILS OF A BUNCH OF FISH-FUCKING OFFICERS.

CG: I CAN’T WAIT.

 

TA: you’re ju2t jealou2.

 

CG: YOU CAUGHT ME, SOLLUX.

CG: MAN, I WISH I COULD BE DEHUMANIZED TO THE POINT OF BEING INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM AN ICE CUBE DISPENSER. SOUNDS FUCKING AWESOME.

CG: FORGET THE RUSH OF BATTLE OR FILLING QUADRANTS OR RELAXING IN A RECUPERACOON AFTER A LONG DAY.

CG: THAT SHIT PALES IN COMPARISON TO THE SHEER DELIGHT OF LOSING ALL CONSCIOUS THOUGHT AND HAVING THE ONLY THING TETHERING ME TO REALITY BEING THE WHITE-HOT AGONY OF MY BODY BURNING ITSELF OUT BECAUSE FUCKING ADMIRAL ASSHAT WANTED TO GET TO THE DAYSPAFIVE MINUTES EARLIER.

 

TA: that2

TA: that2 not true.

TA: ii2 iit?

 

CG: SERIOUSLY? HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU NOT KNOW THIS?

CG: YOU CAN TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES THE WASTE RECEPTACLE IN THE SS SHIT-FOR-BRAINS HAS CLOGGED, BUT YOU WEREN’T AWARE THAT HELMSMEN ARE BASICALLY AUTOMATONS? 

 

TA: well ii mean, 2ure iit2 a lot of work.

TA: theyre runniing an entiire 2hiip, 2o they cant exactly take a lunch break.

TA: but iit2 nothiing that 2evere.

TA: ii mean, theyre 2tiil iin there.

 

CG: SOLLUX, LET ME ASK YOU. IN ANY OF THE _MANY_ SHIP’S LOGS YOU HAVE JERKED OFF TO, DID YOU EVER ONCE READ ABOUT A HELMSMAN?

CG: I MEAN ABOUT AN ACTUAL INDIVIDUAL, AND NOT JUST THE CONCEPT.

 

TA: theyre mii22iion briiefiing2, not go22iip magaziine2.

TA: they dont put down triiviial iinformatiion.

 

CG: THEY ALWAYS LIST THE FUCKING CAPTAIN, DON’T THEY? OR WHATEVER GILL-GLUBBING DOUCHECANOE IS IN CHARGE.

CG: AND YET NEVER ONCE IS A HELMSMEN’S ACTIONS DESCRIBED. THEY’RE JUST LISTED, LIKE PIECES OF EQUIPMENT. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE.

 

TA: okay, 2o maybe iit ii2nt the mo2t pre2tiigiiou2 job.

TA: but ju2t becau2e they dont get a 2tandiing ovation every tiime they 2ucce22fully expel flatulence doe2nt mean they are 2ome 2ort of miindle22 zombiie2.

 

CG: SERIOUSLY, SOLLUX, PULL YOUR FREAKISHLY FOUR-HORNED HEAD OUT OF YOUR WASTE CHUTE. WHY THE FUCK WOULD THE OPERATING SYSTEM FOR A BATTLESHIP NEED A PERSONALITY?

CG: IN FACT, YOU KNOW A FAIR FUCK ABOUT PROGRAMMING. YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT KIND OF CONCENTRATION WOULD BE NEEDED IN ORDER TO PROCESS THAT AMOUNT OF INFORMATION.

 

TA: more than any troll miind i2 capable of proce22iing.

TA: 2o obviiou2ly the helm2man doe2nt do iit all.

TA: there would be back-up 2y2tem2 iin place to help wiith the workload.

TA: ii mean, that kiind of data iinput…

TA: a thiink pan can’t proce22 that much wiithout liiquefyiing.

 

CG: MY POINT EXACTLY.

CG: WHY DON’T YOU JUST CHECK THOSE BASE-RAIDER SCHEMATICS YOU USE AS A BLANKIE. SEE FOR YOURSELF.

CG: THERE ARE NO BACKUP SYSTEMS.

CG: WHY GO THROUGH THE HASSLE OF SPLITTING THE SHIP’S VITAL PROCESSES INTO SEVERAL INDIVIDUAL, NON-COORDINATED REDUNDANT ROUTINES WHEN YOU COULD ROUTE THEM THROUGH THE UNFORTUNATE FUCK PLUGGED INTO THE MAINFRAME?

CG: THE KIND OF EFFORT IT WOULD REQUIRE TO DESIGN A MULTI-LEVEL PROCESSOR…

CG: IT WOULD REQUIRE THE FIN FLAPPERS TO GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT A BUNCH OF LOWBLOOD TELEKINTETICS.

CG: WHICH THEY DON’T, BY THE WAY.

 

You don’t dignify him with a retort. You are too busy pouring over said schematics (you do not fucking use it as a blankie. You just like to glance at it every now and then several times a day). You can feel a migraine starting, making your eyes pulse with the built-up psionics. He’s right. That nubby little nook-rubber is right. Of course, just because the schematics don’t detail back-up systems doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Or maybe it’s just this ship. Because there would be no point in turning the helmsman into a cerebrally bankrupt autopilot, not when it could be avoided. Sure, it might mean sacrificing some efficiency, but your benevolent empire cares enough about the well-being of their cannon fodder and who the fuck are you kidding why didn’t you see it before?! They would probably go out of their way to make the helmsman as miserable as possible. I mean, the very idea of a lowblood being allowed success and prestige is ridiculous. They wouldn’t give one that much power. They wouldn’t give _you_ that much power.

 

You crumple the schematics, your hands quaking and your mind racing, trying to find flaws in this argument, trying to see the error, but all you can see is how blind you’ve been all this time. There’s no room in your head to think right now, not with all this FUCKING PSY-ENERGY filling you up and you think you might explode and who would they call to fix you a doctor or a mechanic and

 

you are having a tantrum and it feels like there is a part of you sitting outside your body and watching you tremble and shake with the pent up cerebral-discharge and you wonder if this is what it feels like to be plugged into a machine watching yourself live a life and not even being envious of what you are missing.

 

You watch yourself throw a fit, tearing down your armada posters with your mind and setting your battleship models ablaze with psionic energy and crying like a wriggler stuck on its back.

 

You don’t calm down so much as burn yourself out. Your head just sort of runs out of fuel, and you crumple down on the floor, still watching yourself from outside your body. You aren’t done being angry, not by several sweeps, but now more than anything you just want to slide into your recuperacoon and forget you are you for a while.

 

Your name is Sollux, and when you grow up you are going to be a spaceship. Whether you want to or not. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing fanfiction in almost a decade. That's right, not since middle school. *shudder* Let's not go there.
> 
> Anyways, I have a personal headcanon about how Alternian society brainwashes their members through schoolfeeding, convincing them that the horrible lives of violence and destruction they lead are awesome and for the glory of the empire.


End file.
